Vladimir Putin accuses US of being behind election protests

Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of orchestrating social unrest on
Russia's streets after last Sunday's disputed parliamentary election in a
Cold War-style outburst certain to damage US-Russia relations.

Mr Putin suggested that Washington was funding his opponents in order to interfere in Russia's internal affairsPhoto: AFP

In his first comments on recent anti-Kremlin protests, the Russian prime minister went on the attack, alleging that Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, had encouraged his political opponents to take to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"She sent a signal to some activists inside the country," Mr Putin told a meeting of his supporters. "They got the message and started active work with the support of the US state department."

Furious with her repeated criticism of the election as neither free nor fair, Mr Putin suggested that Washington was funding his opponents in order to interfere in Russia's internal affairs.

"Pouring foreign money into electoral processes is particularly unacceptable," he fumed. "Hundreds of millions are being invested in this work. We need to work out ways to protect our sovereignty and to defend ourselves from outside interference."

Resorting to Cold war-rhetoric, he claimed Washington was wary of Russia because of its nuclear arsenal. "They are trying to shake us up so that we do not forget who is boss on the planet," he said.

In Brussels for a Nato meeting, Mrs Clinton refused to back down when asked to respond to Mr Putin's comments. She simply said: "We expressed concerns we thought were well founded about the conduct of the elections."

Around 1,000 protesters have been arrested since the election which saw Mr Putin's United Russia party suffer a fifteen per cent drop in support despite credible claims of massive vote-rigging.

On Thursday, a Russian election monitoring group claimed his party had in fact got twenty per cent less than the 49.3 per cent it allegedly won, estimating that its real share of the vote was around thirty per cent.

Anti-Kremlin activists are planning a big nationwide protest on Saturday, the centrepiece of which is a large rally in Moscow.

The number of people who have said they will attend the Moscow event was rapidly moving towards 30,000 last night with organisers in talks with city officials to sanction a protest of up to 50,000 people. Protests are also being organised in at least eighty other towns and cities.

Mr Putin insisted the Russian people did not want a revolution however, making it clear he would not tolerate any unrest or allow the protests to get out of hand.

"You and I know that in our country people do not want the situation to develop like it did in Kyrgyzstan or in the recent past in Ukraine," he said, referring to mass street demonstrations that brought down those countries' governments. "Nobody wants chaos."

While he said he accepted that law-abiding citizens had the right to protest "within the framework of the law", he said that anyone breaking the law would be punished "with full legal means."

President Dmitry Medvedev struck a softer tone, saying that the protests were "a reflection of democracy" and that people should calm their nerves.

In another development that bodes ill for US-Russia relations, talks in Brussels about a proposed US-led missile defence system for Europe ended without a breakthrough. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, left the talks in poor humour. "Unfortunately our partners are not yet ready for co-operation," he said curtly. Moscow is looking for legally-binding assurances that the new system will not be used against Russia, something Washington and Nato have refused.

Mr Putin, who is planning to return to the presidency in March, appears to be in no mood to compromise either, especially when it comes to his political opponents at home.

Although he raised the vague possibility of "dialogue" with the opposition, he made it clear what he thought of them. "We are all adults here," he told his supporters. "And we all understand that some of the organisers are following a well-known scenario and have their own narrow political goals."